Research Output

The "Coven of the Articulate": orality and community in Anne Rice's vampire fiction.

Anne Rice's twelve vampire “autobiographies” continue to be hugely influential for vampire fiction and other artifacts of popular culture. This article explores two tropes which structure and enable the vampire communities throughout the twelve texts. Both are crucially gifts: the “Dark Gift” of blood to be swallowed, and the gift of autobiography to be shared. Anthropological gift theory is a fruitful tool for analyzing the way exchange functions in Rice’s texts, as well as in the vast array of texts influenced by her vampire chronicles. Rice’s vampire community is forged by complex exchanges of blood and words, joining mouths that swallow and mouths that speak